The Letters of Hans Esberg

Click on image to read typed version of the letter.

Dr. Hans Esberg lived in San Francisco during the war years. His mother remained in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. She wrote a final letter to him in March 1943, shortly before her deportation to Theresienstadt, and entrusted it to a friend to deliver.

When the United States army was fighting in Germany, this friend passed the letter on to an American soldier, himself an immigrant from Germany. The soldier, Berthold Berlizheimer, translated it into English and sent it to his wife in Los Angeles. Mrs. Berlizheimer in turn sent the letter to Dr. Esberg in San Francisco. But Dr. Esberg’s mother had already died in Theresienstadt by the time the letter was received, over two years after it had been written.

This letter was sent to Dr. Esberg along a copy of his mother's original letter, translated into English.